Formal Refinement Research Articles

John Hick and Candomblé: The concept of religion and the experience of evil

Abstract The article takes as point of departure the influential book An Interpretation of Religion by John Hick both to understand an Afro-Brazilian religion called Candomblé and to suggest a way to define this human activity as a whole. After a description of Hick’s proposal, his ideas will be applied to Candomblé to see what kind of religion it is. From the problems raised in this classification, the article puts forward two formal refinements in Hick’s proposal, which can increase its internal coherence as well. In addition, in view of a salient feature of Candomblé, it is argued that the concept of religion should include the experience of evil as an essential element. The resulting definition is justified by its explanatory power, amplitude and fruitfulness.

The rCOS framework for multi-dimensional separation of concerns in model-driven engineering

The software industry increasingly turns to Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) to mitigate complexity by automating model creation and transformation. Many organisations are pursuing Integrated Development Platforms (IDPs) to enhance automation in their software development processes within MDE. However, the adoption of MDE and engagement with IDPs remain limited due to concerns over their efficacy. We address these challenges in this review paper by introducing a framework for the formal refinement of component and object systems (rCOS). It provides: (1) a formal theory that consists of a modelling language (named OPL) with a calculus of refinement for object-oriented models and component models; (2) a suite of analysis and design techniques that facilitate abstractions and decompositions, leading to a multidimensional separation of concerns; and (3) an IDP (named rCOS Modeller) that supports modelling, design and verification from requirements elicitation through to coding. By advocating for an rCOS-enabled multidimensional approach to separating concerns, this paper offers a comprehensive solution to the challenges facing MDE and IDPs, paving the way for their successful implementation in practice. By delineating the emerging challenges and prospects associated with integrating formal methods for modelling and designing human-cyber–physical systems (HCPS), we show the potential of extending rCOS for MDE in HCPS.

Formal verification and validation of run-to-completion style state charts using Event-B

State chart notations with ‘run to completion’ semantics are popular with engineers for designing controllers that react to environment events with a sequence of state transitions but lack formal refinement and rigorous verification methods. State chart models are typically used to design complex control systems that respond to environmental triggers with a sequential process. The model is usually constructed at a concrete level and verified and validated using animation techniques relying on human judgement. Event-B, on the other hand, is based on refinement from an initial abstraction and is designed to make formal verification by automatic theorem provers feasible. ion and formal verification provide greater assurance that critical (e.g. safety or security) properties are not violated by the control system. In this paper, we introduce a notion of refinement into a ‘run to completion’ state chart modelling notation and leverage Event-B’s tool support for theorem proving. We describe the difficulties in translating ‘run to completion’ semantics into Event-B refinements and suggest a solution. We illustrate our approach and show how models can be validated at different refinement levels using our scenario checker animation tools. We show how critical invariant properties can be verified by proof despite the reactive nature of the system and how behavioural aspects of the system can be verified by testing the expected reactions using a temporal logic, model checking approach. To verify liveness, we outline a proof that the run to completion is deadlock-free and converges to complete the run.

Pemanfaatan Zakat untuk Pemulihan Ekonomi Pasca Pandemi Covid-19

The research is aim to analyze the effect of the zakat instrument on poverty and unemployment and test the zakat instrument as an alternative solution to the economic impact of the middle to lower class post-pandemic community. It uses least square regression as the method of analysis. Where the method is in line with the research objectives that is to test the form of the relationship and the level of significance of the effect of the observed variable. Findings show that H01 is rejected and H11 is accepted, or the zakat instrument has a negative relationship with the poverty and unemployment instrument. As well as the zakat instrument also has a significant effect on the poverty and unemployment instrument or H12 accepted. This research is limited to the geography of Indonesian research. By taking secondary data from reliable sources related to research topics, such as the Baznaz and BPS websites. The time interval for data in this study was taken from 2002 to 2019. Developed from Beik & Arsyanti (2016) published in the journal of Islamic monetary economics and finance 1 (2) pages 141-160 with the title Measuring Zakat Impact on Poverty and Welfare using the Cibest Model. And current research will review with empirical evidence through secondary data about the effectiveness of the zakat instrument in overcoming economic problems in the middle to lower society, especially regarding poverty and unemployment. This aims to strengthen the reasons for submitting zakat instruments to be applied as an alternative solution for post-pandemic economic restoration tools. By taking case simulations from previous crises and testing their effects in the long run. Therefore, in the current research, the method that will be applied is least square regression. Because it is in accordance with the objectives and research conditions at this time. It is a form of refinement on previous research and development with the latest economic cases.

TABOO AVOIDANCES IN KARO LANGUAGE

Civilized society like Karo knows taboo culture and how to avoid it well, so that they can be avoided from social conflict and can live peacefully. However, taboo in language and the way to avoid them are considered increasingly scarce as globalization develops among the current millennial generation. As an effort to provide an understanding about the matter concerned towards future generations, this study describes various ways of avoiding the three types of taboo in Karo: taboo in kinship, i.e. among bengkila and permain, turangku and turangku, and mami and kela; context-specific taboos, i.e. words derived from non-taboo words, and words related to social and physical defects; and general taboos, i.e. swearing and unmentionable words. This research was conducted using descriptive qualitative with ethnographic method. The data were obtained from the key informants who were from indigenous people of Tanah Karo Regency. It is found that taboos in kinship can be avoided by strategy of third-person intermediary, strategy of metaphor through object, and strategy of using the word nina. Context-specific taboo and general taboo can be avoided by various forms of euphemism. However, taboo of swearing type does not have form of refinement because of its purpose and function as emotive expression.

Ženski princip i pitanje univerzalne krivice u romanu "Petruša i Miluša" Petra Sarića

The main characteristic of the novel Petruša i Miluša by Petar Sarić is an elaborate narrative scheme in the form of two voices, mother's and daughter's, two stories that flow and intertwine, and build a third-a story about a story. With this novel and its specific structure, Sarić, on one hand, continued the formal refinement that begun in his previous novels. On the other hand-on the issue of basic poetic-philosophical assumption connected to the question of personal and general (metaphysical) human guilt-he went further concerning both his creative work and the entire Serbian prose with similar thematic preoccupations. The Dionysian principle is represented by the imperatives of the body, the laws of blood, and Petruša's instinctive reaction, through her unrestrained nature that, at the same time, strives for self-renewal and self-destruction. It is a form of the female principle-creative and destructive at the same time, dark, chthonic as opposed to Miluša's Apollonian orientation, worshiping of light, and her mental illumination. Petruša i Miluša is not a model of a family novel (although it can be assumed). Still, in Sarić's novel, the family is just a focus into which the courses of overall existence converge and in which things are condensed and reflected by their true dimensions. This fact is not at all surprising bearing in mind his previous novels (Sutra stiže Gospodar, and especially Dečak iz Lastve), Sarić has already proved himself as a writer who searches for the deepest secrets of human nature, introducing a reader to the dark realm of the human soul, which is shaped according to his artistic creation and creative intuition.

On the Problem of Medical Diagnostic Evidence: Intelligent Analysis of Empirical Data on Patients in Samples of Limited Size

This paper discusses the possibility of expanding the ideas of the validity of medical decisions of a diagnostic nature, which are made in the framework of so-called evidence-based medicine. An approach is proposed that allows building special data in the process of intelligent analysis of accumulated empirical data, which characterize the causality of a diagnosed effect–logical conditions (characteristic functions) that take the value true in all instances of the presence of the target effect and the value false for all instances of its absence in the training sample of precedents. This problem is solved based on the expanding sequences of training samples using: (a) a formal refinement of the concept of similarity of precedent descriptions as a binary algebraic operation, and (b) a mathematical technique for generating empirical dependences in the style of the JSM method of automated support for scientific research. The features and capabilities of the developed approach are described based on the example of solving the problem of analyzing the causes and predicting the pseudoprogression of brain tumors.

Use of Steel Slag with Variations of Fas Compressive Strength of Concrete

Concrete represents function of structured construction material by water, cement, pebble, sand or habit of supplied with materials growing other (admixture). most influencing parameter of strength of concrete the quality of cement, proportion cement to mixture, strength and hygiene of aggregate, adhesion or interaction between pasta cement with aggregate. Slag represent product of is nonmetal which represent material in form of refinement until big logs, from result of made cool combustion. Compression of slag as harsh aggregate at concrete with proportion of slag vary 0%, 50%, 100%, and variation of fas 0,4; 0,5; 0,6; by using object test cylinder (15x30 cm) counted five samples of each variation and slag of fas be strong depress concrete until 28 days old. To get concrete mixture composition value the method of ACI (American Concrete Institute) is used. The result of strength test heighten strength depress concrete because tendency add it increase of strength depress in FAS 0.4 slag steel 100% depressed mean 44.979 (N/mm2).

A Mechanized Formal Refinement Proof of Modbus Communication Using Event-B Proof System

A Mechanized Formal Refinement Proof of Modbus Communication Using Event-B Proof System

Modelling, formal refinement and partitioning strategies for a small aircraft fuel pump system in Hybrid Event-B

A case study centred on a fuel supply system for a small aircraft is presented in Hybrid Event-B, an extension of conventional Event-B that allows for the modelling and verification of hybrid and cyberphysical systems exhibiting nontrivial continuous behaviour. In contrast to many such case studies, which concentrate predominantly on timing issues, the focus in the present work is on nontrivial physical behaviour, and on the effect that this has on various refinement and partition strategies. More liberal proof obligations are developed to add flexibility to the decomposition process. • Hybrid Event-B modelling of an aircraft fuel system. • Investigation of partitioning strategies. • New verification conditions for decomposition.

A formal approach to derive an aspect oriented programming-based implementation of a secure access control filter

Context: Nowadays, Information Systems (IS) are at the heart of most companies and constitute then a critical element that needs an adequate attention regarding security issues of sensitive data it manages.Objective: This paper presents a formal approach for the development of a filter to secure access to sensitive resources of information systems.Method: The proposed approach consists of three complementary steps. Designers start by modeling the functionalities of the system and its security requirements using dedicated UML diagrams. These diagrams are then automatically translated into a formal B specification suitable not only for reasoning about data integrity checking but also for the derivation of a trustworthy implementation. Indeed, a formal refinement process is applied on the generated B specification to obtain a relational-like B implementation which is then translated into an AspectJ implementation, connected to a SQL Server (release 2014) relational database system. Such a generation is performed following the aspect oriented programming paradigm which permits a separation of concerns by making a clear distinction between functional and security aspects.Results: A systematic formal approach to derive a secure filter that regulates access to the sensitive data of an information system. The filter considers both static and dynamic access rules. A tool that supports the proposed approach is also provided.Conclusion: The approach has been applied on several case studies that demonstrate that the development of a tool permits to free the developers from tedious and error-prone tasks since they have just to push a button to generate the AspectJ code of an application.

Comparison of specification decomposition methods in Event-B

Decomposition is an important phase in the design of medium and large-scale systems. Various architectures of software systems and decomposition methods are studied in numerous publications. Presently, formal specifications of software systems are mainly used for experimental purposes; for this reason, their size and complexity are relatively low. As a result, in the development of a nontrivial specification, different approaches to the decomposition should be compared and the most suitable approach should be chosen. In this paper, the experience gained in the deductive verification of the formal specification of the mandatory entity-role model of access and information flows control in Linux (MROSL DP-model) using the formal Event-B method and stepwise refinement technique is analyzed. Two approaches to the refinementbased decomposition of specifications are compared and the sources and features of the complexity of the architecture of the model are investigated.

Modular, crash-safe refinement for ASMs with submachines

In this paper we define a formal refinement theory for a variant of Abstract State Machines (ASMs) with submachines and power cuts. The theory is motivated by the development of a verified flash file system. Different components of the system are modeled as submachines and refined individually. We define a non-atomic semantics that is suitable for considering power cuts in the middle of operations. We prove that refinement is compositional with respect to submachines and crashes. We give a criterion “crash-neutrality” and corresponding proof obligations that are sufficient to reduce non-atomic reasoning to standard pre/post verification in the context of power failures in file systems.

Model-driven synthesis of formally precise, stylized software architectures

Abstract Reliably producing software architectures in selected architectural styles requires significant expertise yet remains difficult and error-prone. Our research goals are to better understand the nature of style-specific architectures, and relieve architects of the need to produce such architectures by hand. To achieve our goals, this paper introduces a formally precise approach to separate architectural style design decisions from application-specific decisions, and then uses these separate decisions as inputs to an automated synthesizer. This in effect supports a model-driven development (MDD) approach to architecture synthesis with style as a separate design variable. We claim that it is possible to formalize this separation of concerns, long implicit in software engineering research; to automatically synthesize style-specific architectures; and thereby to improve software design productivity and quality. To test these claims, we employed a combination of experimental systems and case study methods: we developed an MDD tool and used it to carry out case studies using Kitchenham’s methods. Our contributions include: a theoretical framework formalizing our separation of concerns and synthesis approach; an MDD framework, Monarch; and results of case studies that we interpret as supporting our claims. This work advances our understanding of software architectural style as a formal refinement; makes application descriptions an explicit subject of study; and suggests that synthesis of architectures can improve software productivity and quality.

Web Applications Development by Formal Refinement Approach

Web Applications Development by Formal Refinement Approach

Application of Fuzzy Labeled Transition System to Contract Net Protocol

For developing large dynamic systems in a rigorous manner, fuzzy labeled transition refinement tree (FLTRT for short) has been defined. This model provides a formal specification framework for designing such systems. In fact, it supports abstraction and enables fuzziness which allows a rigorous formal refinement process. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the applicability of FLTRT for designing multi agent systems (MAS for short), among others collective and internal agent's behaviors. Therefore, Contract Net Protocol (CNP for short) is chosen as case study.

Renzo Piano: Poet of Technology

The architecture of the Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) is renowned internationally for the formal refinement of its components and detailing as well as for its sensitive responses to context, both in terms of its physical surroundings and local construction traditions. But, as architectural author and Piano specialist Peter Buchanan reminds us, the central concern of the practice remains focused on the original core impetus of expandingthe bounds of what technology and materials can achieve.

Technique Uses Multilateral, Multisegment Wells To Represent Hydraulic Fractures

This article, written by Special Publications Editor Adam Wilson, contains highlights of paper SPE 163644, ’Representing Hydraulic Fractures by Use of a Multilateral, Multisegment Well in Simulation Models,’ by D.A. Edwards, SPE, Schlumberger; N. Cheng, SPE, Statoil; T.P. Dombrowsky (now with Longhorn Technologies) and G. Bowen, SPE, Schlumberger; and H. Nasvik, SPE, Statoil, prepared for the 2013 SPE Reservoir Simulation Symposium, The Woodlands, Texas, USA, 18-20 February. The paper has not been peer reviewed. Simulating fractured wells is challenging and impractical with local grid refinement (LGR) in full-field models with a large number of wells each with multiple fractures. This paper describes a modeling technique by which hydraulic fractures are represented as part of the well model rather than as any form of refinement in the simulation grid. In this approach, a planar fracture is modeled by the mesh formed from the interconnected branches of a multilateral, multisegment well (MSW). Introduction Hydraulic fracturing can dramatically change the flow dynamics of a reservoir, so its correct modeling in reservoir simulation can be critical. However, the presence of hydraulic fractures presents a challenge in flow simulation. This is because these fractures introduce effects that operate on different length and time scales than do usual reservoir dynamics. To overcome this problem, a multitude of modeling techniques and workarounds has been developed. These include the use of dual-porosity models, enhancement of the productivity index of the fractured wells, virtual well perforations to simulate the fractures, and explicit fine-scale gridding. In full-field simulations, where an entire reservoir with complex geometry, multiple wells, and possible faults is modeled, LGR is a popular method representing hydraulic fractures. However, this approach introduces its own set of problems. For example, in structured grids, the overall orientation of the grid may not easily accommodate fractures, particularly if they are at arbitrary angles. This paper investigates the modeling of hydraulic fractures as part of the well model. MSWs are a discretized model of a well where fluid flow inside the wellbore is computed by solving physical flow model equations in one dimension. This domain is made up of the segments of the well that consist of nodes, which are connected by pipes. MSWs allow for lateral branches off the main stem and for looped flow paths; both features are employed here for the modeling of hydraulic fractures.

Modelling and refinement of forensic data acquisition specifications

This paper defines a model of a special type of digital forensics tools, known as data acquisition tools, using the formal refinement language Event-B. The complexity and criticality of many types of computer and Cyber crime nowadays combined with improper or incorrect use of digital forensic tools calls for more robust and reliable specifications of the functionality of digital forensics applications. As a minimum, the evidence produced by such tools must meet the minimum admissibility standards the legal system requires, in general implying that it must be generated from reliable and robust tools. Despite the fact that some research and effort has been spent on the validation of digital forensics tools by means of testing, the verification of such tools and the formal specification of their expected behaviour remains largely under-researched. The goal of this work is to provide a formal specification against which implementations of data acquisition procedures can be analysed.

Formalizing Timed BPEL by D-LOTOS

Different standards and languages are proposed in the literature to model the composition of Web services. Unfortunately these languages are essentially syntactic and thus contain much ambiguity and inconsistency. In addition, the formal verification of the proposed languages is impossible. In this paper, the authors propose a transformation approach allowing the formal representation, analysis and refinement of Web services compositions. Both timed constraints and the durations of interactions between these services are taken into account. The authors present a mapping from Web services described in the BPEL language to an abstract specification written in the real-time language D-LOTOS which is based on true-concurrency semantics.